The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

by Thomas Fleming

  LOVE’S SECRET TRIUMPH

  1. King, ed., Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, vol. 2, 330.

  2. AH to EH, June 3, 1798, PAH, vol. 21, 482.

  3. Hendrickson, Hamilton, vol. 2, 661–64.

  4. Thomas Fleming, Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America (New York, 1999), 360–61.

  5. Ibid., 355–57.

  6. Ibid., 361.

  7. James A. Hamilton, Reminiscences of James A. Hamilton (New York, 1869), 65.

  8. Jesse Benton Fremont, Souvenirs of My Time (Boston, 1887), 117.

  9. Baxter, A Godchild of Washington, 222.

  BOOK FIVE: Thomas Jefferson

  ROMANTIC VOYAGER

  1. Henry S. Randall, Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1958), vol. 1, 40–41.

  2. Marie Kimball, Jefferson, The Road to Glory (New York, 1943), vol. 1, 67–68.

  3. TJ to John Page, October 7, 1763, PTJ, vol. 1, 11–12.

  4. While writing Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America (New York, 1999), the author consulted Robert B. Daroff, professor of neurology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, an internationally recognized expert on migraine and other headache disorders; Aaron Burr also suffered from migraines (Duel, 421, n. 17.)

  5. TJ to John Page, January 19, 1764, PTJ, vol. 1, 13.

  6. TJ to John Page, April 9, 1764, PTJ, vol. 1, 17.

  7. Dumas Malone, Jefferson The Virginian (Boston, 1948), vol. 1, 84–85.

  8. Ibid., 154–55.

  9. TJ to John Page, February 21, 1770, PTJ, vol. 1, 36.

  10. TJ to James Ogilvie, February 20, 1771, PTJ, vol. 1, 63.

  11. TJ to Robert Skipwith, August 3, 1771, PTJ, vol. 1, 78.

  12. Kimball, Jefferson, The Road to Glory, 174–75.

  13. TJ to Thomas Adams, February 20, 1771, PTJ, vol. 1, 61.

  14. Sarah N. Randolph, The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, VA, 1947), 24–25 (Reprint). Fawn M. Brodie, in her book Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History (New York, 1974), contends John Skelton was still alive when Jefferson married Martha. Her evidence is unconvincing. The bridegroom’s attempt to describe his bride as a spinster makes it even more unlikely. Kimball, Jefferson, 176, note 28, confirms this interesting change.

  15. Some scholars have had doubts about the bottle of wine. It originated with Henry Randall, Jefferson’s mid–nineteenth-century biographer, who talked with surviving members of the Jefferson family as part of his research.

  THE TRAUMAS OF HAPPINESS

  1. Negro slave wet nurses were common in the South at this time. Many wealthy families used them. Julia Cherry Spruill, Women’s Life and Work in the Southern Colonies (New York, 1972), 56–57.

  2. Frederick D. Nichols and James A. Bear Jr., Monticello (Charlottesville, VA, 1967), 13–14.

  3. Malone, Jefferson The Virginian, 121–22.

  4. Randolph, Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson, 26–28.

  5. This statement is conjectural from several points of view. Elizabeth Hemings’s mother was black. The Virginia law in the Howell case was aimed at white women who had children by black men. But in later years, Jefferson wrote a letter arguing that people like the Hemingses, born of mixed marriages for two generations, should be free. Another conjecture finds doubts that Wayles was the children’s father. The author feels that Jefferson’s special concern for the Hemingses, over several decades, makes this claim dubious.

  6. Kimball, Jefferson, The Road to Glory, 118–19.

  7. JA to Timothy Pickering, August 6, 1822, John Francis Adams, ed., John Adams, Life and Works, vol. 100, 239. This old man’s memory requires several grains of salt.

  8. TJ to John Randolph, August 25, 1775, PTJ, 241.

  9. Boyd, ed., Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 8, 312, n.

  10. TJ to RHL, July 29, 1776, PTJ, vol. 1, 477.

  11. TJ to JH, October 11, 1776, PTJ, vol. 1, 524; RHL to TJ, November 3, 1776, PTJ. vol. 1, 589.

  12. TJ to Timothy Matlack, April 18, 1781, PTJ, vol. 5, 490.

  13. TJ to GW, October 28, 1781, PTJ, vol. 6, 185.

  14. TJ to ER, September 16, 1781, PTJ, vol. 6, 117–18, and ER to TJ, October 9, 1781, PTJ, vol. 6, 128–29.

  15. Some years ago, the author discussed Martha’s health with the late Alvan R. Feinstein, MD, Sterling Professor of Medicine at Yale Medical School. Dr. Feinstein, while properly cautious about such a long-range diagnosis, thought diabetes was a likely source of her childbirth woes. He noted that according to a family tradition, her babies grew larger with each birth—a common symptom of this disease.

  16. TJ to JM, May 20, 1782, PTJ, vol. 6, 185.

  17. PTJ, vol. 6, 196.

  18. Rev. Hamilton W. Pierson, ed., Jefferson at Monticello: The Private Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1862), 106–7 (Michigan Historical Reprint Series).

  19. Randolph, Domestic Life, 40–41.

  20. TJ to EE, October 31, 1782, PTJ, vol. 6, 198–99.

  HEAD VERSUS HEART

  1. JM to Edmund Randolph, November 12, 1782, William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal, eds., Papers of James Madison (hereafter PJM), vol. 5 (Chicago, 1967), 272–73.

  2. Malone, Jefferson The Virginian, 407–23.

  3. Howard C. Rice Jr., Thomas Jefferson’s Paris (Princeton, NJ, 1976), 42–43, 103.

  4. Kimball, Jefferson, The Scene of Europe, vol. 3 (New York, 1950), 9.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man, vol. 2 of Jefferson and His Time (Boston, 1951), 11–12.

  7. TJ to Carlo Bellini, professor of modern languages at the College of William and Mary, September 30, 1785, PTJ, vol. 8, 568–69.

  8. Douglas Adair, Fame and the Founding Fathers (New York, 1974), 190.

  9. Rice, Thomas Jefferson’s Paris, 67.

  10. Jon Kukla, Mr. Jefferson’s Women (New York, 2007), 156.

  11. TJ to Elizabeth Trist, December 15, 1786, PTJ, vol. 10, 600.

  12. Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man, 71.

  13. Ibid., notes 14 and 15. TJ described the accident as “one of those follies from which good cannot come but ill may.”

  14. John P. Kaminski, ed., Jefferson In Love, the Love Letters between Jefferson and Maria Cosway (Lanham, MD, 2001), 44–64.

  15. Ibid., 65.

  16. Kukla, Jefferson’s Women, 104–5. This is the most convincing summary of Maria Cosway’s second visit to Paris, during which she largely ignored Jefferson and vice versa.

  17. Kimball, Jefferson, The Scene of Europe, 303–4.

  18. Levin, Abigail Adams, 298–99.

  19. Kimball, Jefferson, The Scene of Europe, 305.

  20. Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello, the Story of an American Family (New York, 2008), 173.

  21. Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man, 246.

  22. William H. Gaines Jr., Thomas Mann Randolph, Jefferson’s Son In Law (Louisiana State University Press, 1966), 15–24.

  23. MJR to TJ, April 25, 1790, PTJ, vol. 26, 225.

  THE WAGES OF FAME

  1. Malone, Jefferson and the Rights of Man, 436ff. The chapter, “Hamilton Vs Jefferson” (462–77) is perhaps the best summary of the dispute.

  2. Noble Cunningham Jr., In Pursuit of Reason, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (Louisiana State University Press, 1987), 207–8.

  3. Michael Durey, With the Hammer of Truth: James Thomson Callender and America’s Early National Heroes (Charlottesville, VA, 1990), 157–8. Also see Richmond Recorder, September 29, 1802, for reference to Madison.

  4. Richmond Recorder, November 17, 1802. There are several more verses.

  5. Durey, With the Hammer of Truth, 162. Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation (New York, 1970), 709.

  6. Richmond Recorder, September 15 and September 22, 1802.

  7. Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello, 496–502.

  8. Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, vol. 3 of Jefferson and His Time (Boston, 1970), 222–23.


  9. Edwin M. Betts and James A. Bear Jr., eds, The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson (Columbia, MO, 1966), 240.

  10. Thomas Fleming, The Louisiana Purchase (New York, 2003). This brief book, part of a “Turning Points in American History” series, is a good summary of Louisiana story. It includes an extensive bibliography.

  11. Durey, With the Hammer of Truth, 165–66.

  12. Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909, vol. 5 (New York, 1915–1928), 1422. This describes a triumphant parade in New York staged by Mayor DeWitt Clinton, hailing Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase.

  13. Malone, Jefferson The President, First Term, 411–15.

  14. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, 789–90.

  15. Levin, Abigail Adams, 413–19. Also see Kukla, Jefferson’s Women, 148–50.

  16. Gaines, Thomas Mann Randolph, 48.

  17. Ibid., 64–67.

  18. Gaines, Thomas Mann Randolph, 78–79.

  19. TJ to ER, July 10, 1805, Family Letters, 276.

  20. TJ to ER May 21, 1805, ibid., 271.

  21. Martha Jefferson Randolph to TJ, June 29, 1807, ibid., 302–3.

  22. Randolph, Domestic Life, 294–96.

  23. Ibid., 298.

  24. The Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, http://wiki, Monticello.org, mediawiki/index.php, Nailmaking. Also see Peter S. Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (Charlottesville, VA, 1993), “Those Who Labor For My Happiness, Thomas Jefferson and his Slaves,” by Lucia Stanton, 153–55.

  25. Malone, The Sage of Monticello, vol. 6 of Jefferson and His Time, 511.

  26. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 3, 326–27, note.

  27. Gaines, Thomas Mann Randolph, 142–62.

  28. TJ to JM, February 17, 1826, Republic of Letters, 1964–1967.

  29. Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New York, 1997), 186. This superb book describes in convincing detail the rise of the Declaration to prominence in the American psyche, and Jefferson’s identification with it.

  30. Alan Pell Crawford, Twilight at Monticello, The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 2008), 243–44.

  31. Ibid., 247–49.

  32. Ibid., 249.

  33. Ibid., 257–60. Also see Jack McLaughlin, Jefferson and Monticello, The Biography of a Building (New York, 1988), 380.

  IF JEFFERSON IS WRONG, IS AMERICA WRONG?

  1. Nature, vol. 396, no. 6706, November 5, 1998, 27–28.

  2. New York Times, November 1, 1998. Washington Post, November 23, 1998.

  3. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson, 996.

  4. Peterson, The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, 182–83.

  5. Ibid., 183–84.

  6. Randolph, Domestic Life, Introduction, vii–viii.

  7. Peterson, The Jefferson Image, 231–32.

  8. Ibid., 233–34.

  9. Cynthia H. Burton, Jefferson Vindicated, foreword by James A. Bear, emeritus director of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation (Keswick, VA, 2005), 115.

  10. Pike County Republican, March 13, 1873. The full text can also be found in Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Research Committee, January 2000, 29–31.

  11. Peterson, The Jefferson Image, 185, note.

  12. Burton, Jefferson Vindicated, 116–17.

  13. Recollections of Israel Gillette Jefferson, Pike County Republican, December 25, 1873 (original in Ohio Historical Society), Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Research Committee, January 2000, 32–34.

  14. Letter of Thomas Jefferson Randolph to editor of Pike County Republican, undated, original, University of Virginia Library, Accession No. 8937, Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 35–40.

  15. For almost a century, Monticello had been owned by the Levy family. It was purchased in 1834 by Uriah Levy, a Philadelphian who rose to the rank of commodore in the U.S. Navy. Marc Leeson, Saving Monticello, the Levy Family’s Epic Quest to Save the House that Jefferson Built (New York, 2001).

  16. Peterson, The Jefferson Image, 358.

  17. New York Times, October 15, 2006 (obituary of Mrs. Bennett).

  18. Nature, vol. 396, no. 6706, November 5, 1998.

  19. New York Times letters to the editor, November 9, 1998.

  20. New York Times letters to the editor, November 6, 1998.

  21. Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, 10.

  22. Response to the Minority Report, prepared by Lucia C. Stanton, Shannon Senior Research Historian, April 26, 2000.

  23. Jet, February 14, 2000.

  24. Jefferson’s Blood Interviews, Dr. Eugene Foster, 6.

  25. American Heritage, February-March 2002, vol. 53, issue 1.

  26. http://www.monticello.org/Matters/people/hemings-jefferson_contro.html, “Matters of Fact, The Hemings-Jefferson Controversy: A Brief Account.” There is a separate biography of Sally Hemings under “Matters of Fact.” For the revised statement, see: http://www.Monticello.org/planatation/hemingscontro/hemings-jefferson.

  27. “A Daughter’s Declaration,” John Hopkins Magazine, September 1999, 21–27.

  28. New Yorker, December 1, 2008, 34–38.

  29. Steven Corneliussen’s essay can be read online at TJscience.com.

  30. Burton, Jefferson Vindicated, 116, citing Albermarle County Minute Book, 1830–31:123.

  31. Burton, Jefferson Vindicated, 42.

  32. Ibid., 88, citing Callender in the Richmond Recorder.

  33. At the end of the nineteenth century, in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, which spawned outrageous lies in newspapers, Joseph Pulitzer created a sensation when he told his reporters that henceforth they were expected to tell the truth. W. A. Swanberg, Joseph Pulitzer (New York, 1967), 254–55.

  34. For Wetmore’s service record see: Military Pension File, Enlistment Record, Microfilm T-288, roll #509, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C. For the Adaline Rose lawsuit, see Docket Book #3, Pike County District Court, 1878.

  35. The Pike County Republican, October 14, 1875, The Adaline Rose lawsuit was dismissed a year later, in March 1876, when Wetmore had long since fled the scene.

  36. Burton, Jefferson Vindicated, 112. Noted Columbia University scholar Eric L. McKittrick thought, after reading these accounts, that Jefferson, far from being a sensualist, was more like “a tightlipped Irish pastor trying to keep the lid on a parish.” McKittrick thought the real issue was not Jefferson’s personal guilt but “the psychosexual dilemma of an entire society confronting slavery.” “The View From Jefferson’s Camp,” The New York Review of Books, December 17, 1970.

  37. Ibid., 19–20.

  38. Douglas Adair, Fame and the Founding Fathers (New York, 1974), “The Jefferson Scandals,” 160–191.

  39. Bernard Mayo, ed., Preface by James A. Bear Jr., Thomas Jefferson and His Unknown Brother (Charlottesville, 1981), 1–6. Also see Family Letters, 66, 182, 343. In Jefferson Vindicated, Cynthia Burton also examines Randolph as a potential father, 52–60.

  40. McLaughlin, Jefferson and Monticello, the Biography of a Builder, 150–51.

  41. Jeffersonian Legacies, edited by Peter S. Onuf (Charlottesville, 1993), is a good example of this trend. Its essays were delivered at a 1993 conference at the University of Virginia (discussed in the appendix). Pauline Maier’s book American Scripture (New York, 1997) raises questions about Jefferson’s role in writing the Declaration.

  41. The top four in the C-Span survey were Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt.

  BOOK SIX: James Madison

  A SHY GENIUS MAKES A CONQUEST

  1. Irving Brant, James Madison, The Nationalist (Indianapolis, IN, 1948), vol. 2, 33.

  2. Ibid., 17.

  3. Ibid., 284.

  4. Ralph Ketcham, James Madison, A Biography (Newtown, CT, 1971), 110.

  5. TJ to JM, August 21, 1783, Smith, ed., The Republic of Letters, 26
4.

  6. JM to William Bradford, November 9, 1772, William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (hereafter PJM), vol. 1, 74–76.

  7. Carl Van Doren, The Great Rehearsal, the Story of Making and Ratifying the Constitution of the United States (New York, 1948), 37.

  8. Katherine Anthony, Dolley Madison, Her Life and Times (New York, 1949), 74–75.

  9. Irving Brant, James Madison, Father of the Constitution, 1787–1800 (Indianapolis, IN, 1950), 343.

  10. Richard N. Cote, Strength and Honor, The Life of Dolley Madison (Mt. Pleasant, SC, 2005), 109.

  11. Catherine Coles to DM, June 1, 1794, David C. Mattern and Holly C. Schulman, The Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison (Charlottesville, VA, 2003), 27–28.

  12. Catherine Allgor, A Perfect Union (New York, 2006), 30–31. There is some disagreement about this advice from Mrs. Washington. Richard Cote dramatizes it as a face-to-face meeting. Whether it was advice in the mail or otherwise, Madison may well have enlisted Martha Washington. He knew her well from his many visits to Mount Vernon. She also knew Dolley, whose sister, as noted in the text, was about to marry a favorite nephew, George Steptoe Washington. Dolley lived only a few blocks away from the President’s House. Cote, Strength and Honor, 115–16.

  13. JM to DM, August 18, 1794, Mattern and Schulman, eds., Selected Letters, 28–29.

  14. DM to Eliza Collins Lee, September 16, 1794, ibid., 31.

  PARTNERS IN FAME

  1. Eric McKittrick and Stanley Elkins, “The Divided Mind of James Madison,” The Age of Federalism (New York, 1993), 133ff.

  2. Cote, Strength and Honor, 149.

  3. Allgor, A Perfect Union, 54–56.

  4. Cote, Strength and Honor, 155–56.

  5. Ketcham, James Madison, 386.

  6. Sally McKean to DM, August 3, 1797, Selected Letters, 32.

  7. Ketcham, James Madison, 387. General Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, a Federalist opponent but an old Princetonian friend, made a similar remark. Congratulating Madison on his marriage, he hoped Dolley would “soften…some of your political asperities.” (Anthony, Dolley Madison, 91).

  8. Ibid., 408.

  9. James Sterling Young, The Washington Community, 1800–1828 (New York, 1966), 88–93.